A peek 'Inside The Artists' Studio' at the Bruce Museum

Scott Gargan

Published 5:35 pm, Thursday, December 19, 2013

"Lori Nix Studio," a chromogenic print by Lori Nix, is on view in "Inside The Artists' Studios: Small Scale Views" at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. The exhibition is on display through March 9.
Photo: Contributed Photo

"Lori Nix Studio," a chromogenic print by Lori Nix, is on view in...

A mixed media rendering of the studio of American painter Jasper Johns by Joe Fig is on view in "Inside The Artists' Studios: Small Scale Views" at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. The exhibition is on display through March 9.
Photo: Contributed Photo

A mixed media rendering of the studio of American painter Jasper...

"Perspective Box," a painting by Jimmy Sanders, is on view in "Inside The Artists' Studios: Small Scale Views" at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. The exhibition is on display through March 9.
Photo: Contributed Photo

"Perspective Box," a painting by Jimmy Sanders, is on view in...

A rendering of the studio of American artist Chuck Close by Joe Fig is on view in "Inside The Artists' Studios: Small Scale Views" at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. The exhibition is on display through March 9.
Photo: Contributed Photo

A rendering of the studio of American artist Chuck Close by Joe Fig...

It was hardly what he expected from the workroom of a world-famous contemporary artist.

"This is Chuck Close we're talking about, so you'd think it'd be this amazing studio," Fig, who visited the painter at his studio in Bridgehampton, N.Y., in 2004, recalled.

But what the space lacked in creature comforts, it made up for in quirky details: an aging plywood table covered in art supplies; paint splotches splattered across the floor; a phone book left open to reveal the artist's contacts.

It is these details that make Fig's small-scale, mixed-media diorama of Close's studio so revealing, eye-popping, and, as the artist put it, "personal."

Fig is one of four artists whose work is on display in "Inside the Artists' Studios: Small-Scale Views," a new exhibition at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. On view through March 16, it features staggeringly detailed miniatures -- both three- and two-dimensional works -- of artists' work spaces created by artists Fig, of Collinsville; Richard Haas, of New York City; Lori Nix of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Jimmy Sanders, of Tennessee.

After spending the first decade of his career creating large-scale representational paintings of "people at work," Fig did a major about face, shifting to small-scale sculptures as a graduate student at the School of Visual Arts. His first pieces depicted the school's cramped, 10-by-15-foot work spaces.

Fig, who uses firsthand artist interviews and inspections of artists' studios as the groundwork for his sculptures, is intrigued by what art observers "don't get to see in galleries and museums.

"You see a finished piece, but it's just a small percentage of the process," he said. "To get into the studio and see the space, the private space, where artists are allowed to make mistakes, to see how their creativity develops, is really fascinating to me. It's like `VH1 Behind Music.' "

For her contribution to "Inside the Artists' Studios," Nix, who constructs sets and photographs them, turned her sights inward, recreating her cluttered living/work space in Brooklyn. Astonishingly, the scene is a near-exact replica, "down to my books, CDs, a TV, stereo -- all of my stuff," Nix said.

Pictured in the scene of her living/work space is a photograph of another scene she was working on at the time -- an abandoned subway car. It is the subject of one of the images in her series, "The City," which imagines New York City in the wake of "an apocalyptic disaster that forces all its residents to flee." Included in the exhibition is the original photograph of the abandoned subway car, the photograph of the scene Nix created of the subway car, and the scene of her living/work space, which includes the photograph of the scene of the subway car.

Asked what her studio says about her creative process, Nix said, "I'm a pretty laid back and easy-going person." She added, laughing, "I can live with lots of adversity in my life."

"Artists' Studios" is rounded out by Sanders' peep box -- a recreation of Hoogstraten's 17th century "A Peepshow with Views of the Interior of a Dutch House" -- and Haas' impressive collection of dioramic boxes and two-dimensional works (paintings, screen prints and photographs).

All of the works are revealing of the artistic process. But just as fascinating, Fig said, is what they reveal about an artist's personality.

Quite often, those personalities can surprise you.

"The size of studio doesn't matter," Close told Fig during their 2004 interview. "I know artists who spend so much time building fancy studios, then they sell it and move on. I've painted in bedrooms, basements, garages. As long as my back is to the room, I could be anywhere."